31.12.11

Written for the 100th Bloomsday in 2004

In a June 1994 article for Vanity Fair, the late Christopher Hitchens reflects on James Joyce's classic modernist novel, Ulysses, in celebration of its centenary (link via Times Flow Stemmed): 'A surly English overseer is standing at the entrance to a construction site in London. It’s a filthy, wet day. He sees approaching him a shabby figure, with clay pipe clenched in mouth and a battered raincoat, and scowlingly thinks, Another effing Mick on the scrounge. The Irishman shambles up to him and asks if there’s any casual job going. “You don’t look to me,” says the supervisor, “as if you know the difference between a girder and a joist.” “I do, too,” says the Irishman indignantly. “The first of them wrote Faust and the second one wrote Ulysses.”' [Read More]